


Not Just a Job

by Aithilin



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Fluff, Gen, mer may
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-13 20:34:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14755853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: Nyx knew that there were plenty of closed doors that were meant to be left off limits. He doesn't regret opening this one at all.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted over at my Tumblr that had asked for Nyx as a security guard stumbling across a captive Mer Noctis.

Nyx was a mercenary. Not a guard. 

He was a trained fighter; part of the fiercest warriors in Eos. He had participated in tournaments, hunts, and missions that had taken him from the ruins of Solheim to the shattered coastlines of Lucis. He had stood guard for Imperial politicians and in facilities where the screeches of daemons were barely muffled by the walls of thick concrete between the containment units and his post. He had been hired on to join hunters searching old ruins for relics of dead kingdoms, and by Imperials looking to put down resistance groups without sullying the pristine reputations of the politicians just skirting the shadows of Nyx’s own world.

The job had been an easy assignment— a boring one. It had been assigned to Nyx to keep him out of trouble. Those had been his captain’s own words when he was questioned on the whole thing. He had been packed up and shipped off to Altissia, to the seasonal estate of some politician or secretary or other well-to-do that Nyx had never even heard off. He had been assigned for six months, given a briefing that boiled down to “don’t get ideas”, and then given a tour of the place he was supposed to guard. 

Nyx was almost insulted that he had been stuck on a guard duty for some security detail that had gone through budget cuts. 

But he liked Altissia, if he had to admit to anything. He liked the way the canals broke up the city, and the way the light caught on the cascades that made up the famous Wall of Water. The gilded, gleaming polished stone of the building and the arch of the decorative domes had a touch of what seemed to be an ‘old world’ sort of charm that offered a change of scenery from his own hometown— where the tourist traps were all modern, Imperial affairs and the folks like him ended up in smaller ‘rustic’ segments of their own land. He liked the way the city stretched over the bay, and how his apartment was set on the less desirable level of the canals, but still faced an open plaza. There was a cafe across the plaza, just a few doors down from the stairwell Nyx had to climb to get to the wider walkways that could take him across the sinking city. And in the mornings, when he finished his shift of wandering the expanse of hallways of the estate, he liked to watch the sun rise over the waters with a coffee— checking in on his sister. 

There was no secret that he had agreed to this whole thing for her. Selena was in school, and Imperial school for Galahdian children was expensive. Her scholarships wouldn’t cover the cost of rent in the Nif capital, or the warm clothes she’d need to survive the climate. Or the food she was currently sending him pictures of, still steaming breakfasts framed by her notebooks and texts and tablet. 

_Good luck in your exam._ He sent as he sipped a coffee and snapped a picture of the morning sun on the bay for her.

_Go to bed,_ was the response a moment later. 

He wouldn’t get another response until she decided that he had enough sleep. Until she had finished her test and was ready to panic at him over the quick, short messages shared between them. 

The security job was easy, and dull, and quiet. But it paid well enough for him to not worry about what meals his sister was scrounging together, or what would happen when the end of the month came and she would need to have her rent covered. 

Nyx resigned himself to wandering the halls when he got bored of watching security footage. When he was tired of staring at monitors while a movie played on his computer, and he scolded Selena’s late night messages to him. 

No one lived in the house, he learnt. It was more for guests and storage. For the quiet staff that arrived as he left in the morning and were long gone in the evenings when he arrived. It was old and dusty, and only ever opened up when someone important was arriving in the city, and an impression better than the Leville needed to be made. He had never actually seen what it looked like in daylight. 

But the moonlight streamed between cracks in the heavy curtains as he passed. And he could see the shine of statues and silverleaf in most of the rooms left open for the circulation. He caught shadows as he wandered, and knew that Selena would have loved the grandeur of the place— the romance of it. He counted rooms as he passed and checked the alarms and cameras as he went, wondering when he would be pulled away from the city and put back into more exciting hunts or fights. When the money that he was deluged with now would slow to a trickle again.

It was easier to wander and admire the wealth than to worry about when his life would be put back in danger, no matter how much more exciting it would be. Or wonder how Selena would stay in her courses if his savings were depleted. 

There was an anomaly in one of the camera clusters. The day staff had noted down excuses in the logbook for the last few weeks, and left the setting as it was— dark, with no sound or sight in almost half a wing of the estate house. He had been told— through notes and logs— not to worry about it; that the wing was only accessed by a curator and his assistants who locked up each night when they left. That the only thing in that entire section of the mansion he was hired to protect was a collection of gifts that would be moved to Niflheim in a few short weeks. 

But Nyx had been hired to cover any flaws in the security. And an entire section of the building without any eyes on it was a pretty big flaw. Nyx also tended to not trust anyone— particularly those sorts of people with flowery names who Nyx was certain weren’t common to guards. 

Gifts to the Nifs were always big deals. They could make or break trade agreements (Nyx knew from the old politics in Galahd), they could build up alliances or ease pleas for clemency. They were political set pieces, and he wasn’t about to let something that important go without at least a precautionary visit. At the very least he could see if he could fix up the camera. He expected things to be quiet. He expected, at worst, to unlock the door to the wing and find some comically empty rooms— all the gifts and valuables long since stolen by the curator. At best, he expected to see a glimpse of the wealth the Altissean elite intended to present to the Niflheim Emperor, the Chancellor, the politicians and ministers who needed to be bribed to look favourably on the island nations. 

It was the only light switch he had ever touched in the estate, just to get a better look at the set up of the cameras. There were key rooms to examine on his rounds, set pieces he needed to attend to, doors to glance through even if only the canal was beneath the high arched windows. And now, following the routine in this new place, he was curious. 

The doors were marked with the recipient of the gifts and the dates of the meetings. He had seen these hallways and rooms on the news, presentations of elaborate theatre meant to impress the citizens just as much as the visitors.

There was noise from the room labelled as a gift for the Chancellor. 

Nyx paused at the door to listen for it again— a slosh of water that was far too close to be from the canals outside, a noise of something light falling. Pressed against the door, he heard the water again, and the clatter of something striking a distant wall. 

It was instinct to jump into action; to react to the noise by pushing the heavy doors open and flooding the room with the light from the hallway. It was instinct to be at the ready, at attention, to let the adrenaline take over despite not having been prepared for a fight. 

Water splashed onto his boots, and he stopped in his tracks to stare at the large tank in confusion— the large glass walls, and the heavy motor of a filter that hummed with a surprising quiet. He had to stare at the strangeness of it, this tank of water set in the centre of a room in a city that was built on the water. That had canals just beyond the thick walls and covered windows. 

Nyx thoughts it was an exotic fish at first— the thick, powerful tail just a quick flash of shining scales away from the light. He thought it was something strange, a fish unique to the islands, like the koi that had been favoured for ponds and tanks back home. He thought it was something simple and strange and exotic, until his mind caught up to his eyes. Until he realised that it wasn’t a strange fish with a swimmer in the water with it. 

“What the hell?”

The lights of the room were much brighter than he expected, and they didn’t actually seem to help ease his confusion. The creature was curled against the furthest wall of the tank, as far from the door as it could get. The tail cramped in the space provided, and the human features set like a stony mask as it watched him. Nyx had shed light on both of them, and he was frozen in place as he tried to process what he was seeing. 

He had seen creatures like this before. These remnants of magic and fairytale that had been scooped from the depths of the ocean in small batches to be auctioned off to collectors and museums. There used to be one in the national aquarium back home. He had taken Selena to see it once, and she had cried at the sight of the thing in the expanse of the tank it was given. At the way it pressed its very human hands up against the glass of the observation areas to inspect its visitors, flashing fanged grins to the children while parents and guides alike warned their kids that the creature would eat them if it could. That tank had been a whole habitat, complete with plants and space to move, and other fish to interact with. 

This creature looked caged by comparison. 

It looked smaller, and cramped, and lost. 

He took a step back towards the hallway, knowing what people said about feral beasts that were caged for too long. He had seen those sorts of fangs before, in the creature back home as it smiled at the human children who flocked to its exhibit. 

He wasn’t being paid to lose a hand to some damned fish. 

“Wait!” 

The voice nearly made him jump. Stopped him midstep as he turned off the lights again. As he prepared to return to his cramped little room and ignore this door with the Nif Chancellor’s name on it. 

The creature had moved, hands white knuckled now on the edge of the tank glass. “Please. Leave the light on? Please.”

Nyx hesitated at the door, knowing full well that he was not even meant to be in this section of the estate, that he was not supposed to even be examining the cameras that the day staff were supposed to be handling. That he was not supposed to be opening doors and “getting ideas” as his captain would scold him for. “I… I’m sorry, I can’t.”

He flicked the light off and ducked out of the room before he could see the reaction on the creature’s face. Before he could acknowledge that he had seen it. 

The morning report was copied from the night before, from the week before. He didn’t mention the cameras, or the creature, or left any indication that he had wandered away from his usual routes. Amicitia signed off on the report as he came in. As they nodded their ‘good mornings’ to each other, Nyx bit back the urge to question the younger man if he had ever wandered that far into the estate. If he had seen the creature. 

Instead, Nyx grabbed his things and followed the set path back to the cafe for his morning routine. He ignored the confusion from Amicitia, the little questioning comment as the reports were handed over and he practically bolted out into the fresh air. 

It wasn’t until he was sitting with his usual order, coffee steaming in the morning air, that he remembered to check on Selena. That he remembered the steady buzz of her morning greetings and pictures and conversation starters. They all appeared on his lock screen at once, with the most recent forcing him into action. 

_Are you okay, big brother?_

Nyx started his response without thinking. _Yes._

_What’s wrong? Do I need to come kick someone’s ass?_

It was easier to focus on the matter at hand— on picturing the way Selena was likely bustling through her apartment, phone in one hand as she fired off responses like she had a prepared list. It was easier to think of his little sister, backpack slung across one shoulder in the manner he always told her was going to hurt her back, on some train or bus on her way to the next class. It was much, much easier to take a deep breath of the crisp morning air, and not think about the creature back in that estate, in that tank. Selena was the better distraction. 

The reminder that he had to take this as just a job. 

_After your semester. I’ll point you at them._

_Go to sleep._

_Don’t sleep in class._

Nyx told himself he’d stick to the routine next shift. 

His curiosity had been sated. He had never been in the habit of peeking behind locked doors. Of snooping through shadows that weren’t in his orders. He was disciplined— mostly— he was professional. He could handle knowing what was behind that door, in that tank. Waiting for the date scribbled beneath the Niflheim Chancellor’s name. Once that date came and went, it would be just another routine anyway— albeit probably with his sister begging him to visit her for an excuse to see whatever aquarium they stuck that poor creature. 

He paused with his hand on the doorknob the next shift, counting down the weeks to the date that was scrawled in someone’s neat hand.

There was a day staff in the place, Nyx knew that much. He understood that the curator of all these gifts had assistants, and a manifest and a tally of everything that happened. He had gone looking for it. He had gone picking through records on his rounds and found the requisition papers, the documents that tracked the creature— from capture to caging to daily schedule and checks. He had glanced at the equally neat notes tucked into the reports on the thing, the ones that said things like ‘may be incapable of speech’ and ‘has taken a liking to handler Argentum’. He saw the sorts of things they were feeding it, and imagined the fish just dumped directly into the water; like feeding a beast. 

He stepped into the room and ignored the splash that greeted him as he flicked the light switch. 

Technically, he was allowed a lunch break. He was allowed to disappear for a period of time while the cameras and alarms were trusted to catch anything that happened in the hour. He only usually took that break at the dull little desk, with half an eye on the cameras. 

“Hello?”

There would be no way to explain this to his captain. No way to not be fired for this. For stepping out of bounds like this. For ‘getting ideas’. There would be no way that he could come back from this if he was found out. He’d be stuck as a hunter for the rest of his life, at best. Or hauling ass to Niflheim to find work in the actual city, if the Nifs didn’t take offence to the whole thing anyway and kill him for some sort of treason. This had to be treason to someone. 

“You’re back.”

He had forgotten that the creature actually seemed intelligent. 

“Yeah. I… Brought some food?”

Now that he was calmer, he could take his time to examine the thing. The mer in the too-small tank. Its tail was the most striking feature as he approached— a deep stormy grey that he had mistaken for black in the first glance he had. He could see the variation as it moved, as it stretched as much as it could in the small space, pale hands gripping the edge of the tank as it peered over the edge of the thick glass with sea-blue eyes. He could see the intelligence and curiosity in those eyes, and not just the same sort of intelligence expected in some beasts or pets. 

Nyx knew what a person probably smarter than him looked like— his sister tended to remind him of that. 

He offered the little box he had brought with him— the barely warm takeout food he had picked up on his way in. Skewers that were at least a little familiar, still steaming in their messy sauces. 

“You brought food.”

“Yes.”

“Here.”

“And I’m even willing to share it.” Nyx smiled at the look of confusion, pretending that it was an adorable feature, rather than something to be concerned over. Rather than something that seemed to speak volumes about how isolated this creature was. “If you want to try it.”

He didn’t know what the creature ate, or if it could even stomach this sort of food. He didn’t know if the change in the schedule he had gained access to would harm it or if the creature would start talking to its handlers. He had read the notes scribbled into the margins, had seen the meals planned for raw fish and sea grown vegetations. He had read through the manifest from the last week that suggested they were trying to get him acclimatised to fish and meats more common to colder Nif climates, and he wondered just how much of a shock to the system it would be to have something Galahdian in the creature too. 

Or he would have worried if the creature hadn’t snatched one of the skewers on offer and started licking the sauce from it. 

With his back to the cool glass of the tank, Nyx spent the rest of his break talking to the creature. Amused that the creature talked back, smiled when he did, and kept trying to steal whatever else had been brought in for the light meal. He learnt, in the rest of the hour allocated for his lunch, that the creature was named ‘Noctis.’

When he was out of time, he gathered up the remains of the skewers and smiled to the creature. “I’ll be back tomorrow, okay? And this is our secret?”

Noctis nodded eagerly, still pressed against the glass. “Yes. I won’t tell anyone.”

“Good.”

This time, when the lights were turned off, the creature simply slipped back beneath the water. 

He wanted to tell Selena. He started half a dozen texts to her about it over the course of the next few days. He tried to think of ways to tell her, to share his excitement, to reveal what’s happened without actually letting her in on the secret. The furthest he got was asking if she had come across any studies on the strange, rare mer-creature things in her classes. And realised that he didn’t actually know what she was studying. 

Reports were still sent in, and catalogued, and signed off on. Notes and notices were still left between shifts, and Nyx still nodded his greetings to Amicitia. He was still careful to cover his tracks, to check the cameras in that hall, to account for his lunch, to cover any traces of himself snooping through the daily reports on the creature. 

The city lived on around him— the arches and polished stone, the flow of traffic and tides— everything about the city still breathed with life. He still sat out in that little plaza in the morning, with a coffee and breakfast, one hand on his phone as he checked on his sister who was entirely too far away. He still took the long route through the walkways and across the bridges, eyeing up the canal depths with a curiosity he hadn’t felt before— wondering if Noctis had just been unlucky in getting caught. He still enjoyed the morning sun and the crisp air, happy to draw back the heavy curtains in the room during lunch, so Noctis could see the city lights. Or feel the salt breeze as it moved over the water. 

“Ulric,” Amicitia said one afternoon on their usual trade; “did you notice anything weird about that east wing?”

“Weird?” Nyx dropped his bag onto the still-warm desk chair, glancing at the monitors on habit. “How?”

“One of the windows was left open. None of the alarms tripped.”

His breath caught in his throat, but Nyx forced himself not to tense. To look at the other guard in the eye as he looked for clarification. He thought he had closed everything up again. “None? Anything taken? Was there a report?”

“Filed already. But the curator said nothing was taken.” There was a moment where Nyx could tell the younger man was sizing him up. A challenge to his stance, his posture, in his eyes. “I took a look into the incident myself. Checked in the room.”

He trusted Noctis not to talk to anyone else. Not to let on what they had been doing— their meals, the treats, the little chats. “Thought that place was off limits.”

“Extenuating circumstances. Just… Check in on it later tonight.”

“Right.” 

The papers were a mess as soon as Amicitia left the room. The reports that had been filed— the ones that had been signed off, sent to superiors, the ones sent to his own captain— had been Nyx’s first concern. Anything that could reveal Noctis’ intelligence, or anything that could implicate him in the whole situation, had to be his first fix. He spread each report from the day out on the desk, and brought up the logs locked into the security system; there would be notes and remarks, curiosities of note that should be recorded where needed, as he had always been ordered. But everything looked like the same drivel from any other shift. With the exception of the mention of the window, there was nothing to indicate Noctis in the daily files, or that there was any concern about it. He flipped through the files and work, checked the cameras, and then left his post.

Noctis was sulking when he got to the room where the tank was kept. 

“Are you okay?” Nyx had meant to ask what had happened. If anything had been said or suggested. If Amicitia had done anything that they should worry about.

The room had always been bare, save for the large tank and filter. It had still been presentable, after a fashion; the sort of room where there might be a presentation or a press conference. Where an extravagant gift could be passed along with a show of history and wealth meant to impress, rather than tantalise. Nyx had found it dull overall, save for the view out the windows, overlooking the canal. And save for the very clear presentation of the creature in the tank, who was currently curled along the empty bottom of the container with a childish pout on his lips. 

“Gladio said you’re not allowed to open the window again,” Noctis said once he had pulled himself up to the edge of the open aired tank. “And Iggy agreed.” 

Nyx paused at the door before he closed it behind him; “Glad— Amicitia? You know him?”

“Yes?”

“Okay… Great.”

“What?” Noctis grinned, chin rested on his knuckles as he looked Nyx over. “You think everyone can resist a locked door?”

“You brat. You could have told me you knew him. And who’s ‘Iggy’?”

“Scientia. The curator.”

“Right. Okay. The one who thinks you can’t talk.” Another pause and a look of satisfaction from the creature; “Unless he was lying to cover something up. What the hell did I walk in to?”

“An escape plan, I think. They were working out the details.”

“Of course.” Nyx turned and let himself slump against the glass. He let himself slide in relief to the stone floor and started to process the new information with a clearer mind. One that was not fighting the haze of panic and the certainty that he was about to be fired. Or that Noctis was about to be taken away from him. “Of course.”

Water dripped to his face as he leaned up to look at the smiling face looking back down at him; “You okay?”

“I’m fine, fish.” The splash was deserved. And Nyx chuckled at the reaction to the little nickname, even as he reached up to rap on the glass with his knuckles to annoy Noctis again. “Do I get to know the grand escape plan then? Or are you just going to disappear one day?”

“Probably the second one, really.” Noctis reached down to catch Nyx’s hand before he could knock against the glass again. “I haven’t actually told them about you yet.”

“Right. So I should talk to Amicitia.”

“Yes. Did you bring any food?”

There was no question in the right course of action in Nyx’s mind. He knew what was going to happen if he just kept his mouth shut and his focus on his job. He knew what it meant for Noctis, if he either stepped away and let the escape go however it was being planned, or if it failed and Noctis was sent off to the Chancellor in a few weeks’ time anyway. He knew that he would not be able to stay out of the situation regardless of what he chose to do— help or hinder; but turning on the creature and the handlers trying to help it would mean that he might be able to keep his job. 

He spent an hour longer than usual talking with Amicitia about the plan. About what he knew, and what the endgame for the plan was. He listened to the kid’s carefully guarded information, and checked it against the layouts of what he knew of the estate. 

_Quick question, moon bug._ At the little cafe, Nyx wondered if Noctis could survive in the canals. If the ruins were deep enough, dark enough, to hide him until a way through the bay could be opened— if there wasn’t already a way out to the open ocean from inside the protective walls he could see. The plan the kids were coming up with was risky, and far too dangerous for anyone if it failed. 

Selena sent him a picture of her breakfast before replying— the eggs and bacon rearranged into a happy face, just how he used to present it to her when she was little. _Shoot, night owl._

_Remember when you found that chocobo chick trapped in Libs’ garage?_

That had been ages ago. Just after they were taken in by Libertus’ family. Just after their parents had ‘gone missing’ during the first years of the Nif occupation. Selena had wanted to keep the bird to herself. A family pet. A secret for just them. 

_Fluffy? Yeah. Getting a pet?_

_You ever regret bringing it to that rescue ranch?_

There was a long moment before the next response. A moment Nyx took to think his way through the plan he had been told while he sipped at the familiar coffee. While he stayed grounded by the uncomfortable metal chair that was still damp from the early morning drizzle. So far, the plan meant waiting until the last possible minute to make a move, to risk transporting Noctis while there would still be a heavy guard trying to watch him. Trying to account for every movement of that tank. The window of opportunity would close very quickly and very quietly. 

But if he acted early. If he suggested they move early… That would be days longer without Noctis to talk to during the long night shifts. 

_No. Not a bit. Little bird was better off with those guys anyway._

Noctis probably had a family out there somewhere. Or at least some people he could get back to. Or, at the very, absolute least, would have learnt his lesson about getting caught. 

Nyx started the monthly transfer of savings between their accounts, sending what he could to his sister for her bills. _Behave in class._

_Never. Go to sleep._

Setting up the plan was the easy part. He stopped in early a few days during the week to catch the curator and his assistant. He made his suggestions and waited on their responses. They had a week before the Nifs started to arrive for their diplomatic visit. The news was already starting to build it up as some great summit— as if the Nifs wouldn’t just walk all over what they saw as a province in their Empire. 

“Well, little fish? What do you think?”

Noctis still hadn’t been revealed to the public yet. He was still left alone, in his little empty room, with the windows drawn and closed. Nyx had told him everything to prepare him. Had made sure he understood what was going to happen, how it had to happen. 

“What about you? Will you be there?”

“No.”

“But—”

“It’s safer this way, Noctis.” There were four hours in the morning where they could move Noctis. Where he was scheduled for some medical exam to prepare him for travel. Where there were forms and papers and documents to be completed by Ignis, and Ignis alone while a small staff of his choosing could attend. They had pushed that exam forward for this, rather than wait until after the Nifs arrived like it was meant to be scheduled. “You and the others just disappear.”

“But—”

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“Look, we’ll make it easy.” Nyx grabbed Noctis’ hand before he could sulk away. Before he could withdraw and spend the rest of the night in an anxious pout over the whole event and plan. Before Nyx could remember him angry. “This is goodbye, okay? You go home, and so do I. I promise. I’m not sticking around here afterwards, I have people waiting back in Galahd for me. And you stay the hell away from humans after this, okay?”

“Where in Galahd?”

“What?”

“Where do you live in Galahd?”

“No. What did I just tell you?”

“Stay away from humans, but that assumes you’re a human too.”

“You’re such a brat.” But Nyx smiled, and snapped off a few quick pictures of Noctis with his phone; “You are going home, Noct.”

“Fine. Yes.”

Nyx sent in his resignation at the end of his shift. He didn’t report in as scheduled to see if it worked, to go in to an empty room he had come to enjoy visiting. The calls from his captain went ignored, and he texted Selena his plans to go home again. To take up Libertus on his offer for more peaceful work while he figured out what to do. They both knew that she wouldn’t stay in Niflheim anyway, once her courses were finished. She wanted to go home just as much as he did. 

The only update he received was from Amicitia while he was clearing out his apartment. 

Noctis was lounging on the steps of a large boat— tail trailing into the open ocean and hair still a mess from surfacing. He had settled out in the sun, the wake behind them as they moved, the steep cliffs of the Accordo islands no where in sight. Nyx saved the picture, and the message, relieved at the confirmation even as the company that had hired him came to talk about a stolen specimen from a wing of the building he was not cleared to enter. It was easy to feign innocence now, to blame his sister for the sudden resignation. To focus their attention to his reports, to direct them to his former captain, and let Drautos decide what sort of reputation he wanted to put forward on the matter. 

He just wanted to go home.


	2. Chapter 2

Galahd was exactly as Nyx had left it. The sun still rose over the raw cliffs of his particular stretch of coastline, he could still walk across the seabed when the tide was low, and there were still white sanded beaches halfway across the green island where the Nifs had set up shop in the city. He still wandered the edge of the ocean in the afternoon, checking the tidepools and watching the flare of red Nif engines cut across grey clouds and stormy skies. He could still sit on the steps of the house he shared with Libertus in the morning with a steaming coffee cradled in his hands and the distant drop off of land that led into the expanse of a horizon he had missed. 

“Must be quiet,” Libertus said, checking through the delivery list as Nyx unboxed the most recent orders; “compared to that fancy city you were in.”

“I like it better,” Nyx offered a grin as things started to get arranged— oldest to newest for the bar, the fridge for the bottles kept organised by whatever system his childhood friend had devised. The barrels and kegs of whatever else he picked up to serve left in storage, and often untapped unless it was a local the regulars liked. “There’s less trouble here.”

“Right. Trouble follows you, hero.”

Nyx had taken to working the bar until he found something else. Until he no longer felt like he was floating— drifting from one day to the next. He picked up hunts here and there when it was needed, when the business was slow, when Crowe needed someone to watch her back. He had taken to the long stretches of nothing for weeks at a time, the routine a comfort without the military precision or a captain breathing down his neck. 

He had taken to paying attention to the news. 

Altissia had suffered a diplomatic disgrace in recent years, the Nif controls tightened despite their scrambling to clear up any misunderstandings. There had been a shuffle of diplomacies and jobs and positions, and Imperial eyes had turned from the grumblings of resistance in Galahd to the other provinces as perceived slights started to take form. The ruins along the mainland coasts had been under scrutiny, discoveries released about the strange creatures being kept in aquariums and tanks across Eos pushed back into obscurity as the news of Imperial strangleholds fought for dominance across the world. Rumours of ancient Lucian artifacts and treasures had been set aside in favour of more political topics— Altissia’s slight against a high ranking official being taken as a rallying cry in other districts. 

Nyx stayed out of it. 

It helped that no one in his quiet little hometown seemed to care about the Empire. They could just keep on surviving as they had. 

They held a party at the bar when Selena came home. 

He had never been so relieved to have her in sight again. To have her back with family and friends and in a place where she belonged. 

“Hey, night owl,” Selena had been home for weeks when he caught her going through his phone. When he realised that he had forgotten about the pictures he had stored there. “When did you meet a mer?”

“A while ago, moon bug.” He wanted to lie— to keep that little secret for just himself— but Selena had the annoying habit of seeing through him. She had always been able to take one look at him and tell when he was nervous, or lying, or on the edge of some sort of trouble. “When you were in school.”

“Obviously. I just got out of school.” He could tell she was looking through the few pictures he had; the few moments of Noctis saved. “He’s cute.”

“He was, yeah.”

“Was?”

“Nope. Not saying anything else.”

“Nyx! Tell me.”

“No.”

“Fine, I’ll guess!”

“For fuck’s sake, Selena. It was half a year ago.”

“And, I’m losing my touch as a little sister,” she let him snatch his phone back, and grinned as he tucked it away. “You were in Altissia then. Is he in an aquarium? Can I see him?”

“No.”

“No to which one?”

“Both. What do you want for dinner?”

“Salad. Is he dead?”

“No!” At least Nyx still held out hope that the little brat was still alive any annoying whatever family he had somewhere deep in the ocean and far away from humans. He doubted that there would have been any reports otherwise— poaching or recapture. There hadn’t been any big presentation like Altissia had planned, so he could only assume that Noctis was safe. Probably napping in some coral somewhere. Tormenting sharks or something. 

“You,” Selena grinned again, leaning over the back of the little sofa, eyes on her brother as he sorted through their shared kitchen; “liked him.”

“Shut up.”

“You really liked him.”

“He was an entirely different species, Selena. Don’t be weird.”

“Says the man who has a crush on a fish.”

“I’m not having this conversation.”

He had missed Selena’s smile. He had missed her badgering and teasing, her ability to cling to him like a limpet when she wanted to. Even as he tried to shove her off while he worked. He had missed the way she dragged him out to the beach on the days when the bar was closed, when Libertus was off saving the world in his own way be showing up to town meetings and rallies against the occupation. He had missed her constant chatter as she dragged him from tide pool to tide pool to look for treasures left behind. 

She still pestered him about Noctis— to see the pictures, to know what had happened. Nyx told her about the job and the others, the other men who had orchestrated the rescue of the brat. Eventually, he told her about the way Noctis smiled and spoke and sulked when he didn’t get his way or something he enjoyed was taken. He showed her the picture Amicitia had sent, and she remarked on the date of it. 

“I studied them, you know,” she said one morning as they sat together in the dew-covered grass at the edge of Libertus’ property; right where the earth started to crumble away to the sea. “A bit. There was a chapter on them in one of my biology classes. Right between the Zu and the King Behemoth. Almost no one in the class had ever seen one.”

“You did.”

“Yeah, in an aquarium here. You know they were almost classified as a daemon?”

“I can see it? Noctis was a little monster.”

“So he had a name?”

“Yeah. Probably a whole family out there.”

“You’re so cute.”

“I already knew that.”

“You miss him.”

Nyx could only offer a shrug to that, and he didn’t bother to call her out on the look in her eyes. That familiar promise of trouble. Of some plan she wanted to concoct. “Don’t even think about it. You don’t have money for a bounty and you’ve never been fishing in your life.”

“How hard could it be?”

“No.”

He didn’t want to say that he was happy when she took a job in a Nif lab an hour away in the city. He didn’t want her to be anywhere near the Nifs, let alone working for them. But she had been happy, and excited, and had made him dance with her in their kitchen when she got the news— dragging Libertus into it before he could even ask what was happening. 

Their last day under the same roof was spent packing what few things she had into the run down truck he had bought off Crowe. It was a Nif facility, Nif housing, Nif money. He wanted her to be careful. 

They watched the stars on the dark ocean the night before. And she wished him luck with Noctis as she left, despite his protests and Libertus’ questions left in her wake. It was another month before she texted him in the dead of night, giving him a set of co-ordinates that would lead along the beach to the north. She didn’t respond to his questions, but wished him luck. 

_You owe me big, night owl._

There was Nif wreckage everywhere along the coastline— the remnants of the resistance that had ended in Galahdian defeat— already picked clean by scavengers. He recognised Amicitia first, camped out on the oceanside haven the co-ordinates led him to. 

“You’re sister’s persistent, Ulric.”

“It’s what makes her cute.” Nyx dropped his gear on the stone plateau, and tried to determine if this was a set up for trouble. If there was something he needed to worry over, or a fight he should be ready for. “Sorry you were dragged in.”

“Don’t be.” Amicitia offered him one of the chairs already placed at the fire’s edge, the only warmth against the winds coming off the northern waters. “Noct has been insufferable lately. He was a step away from trying to figure out how to be human so he could look for you inland.”

“I told him to stay away from people.”

“He knows what he wants.”

Noctis was waiting for him at the beach in the morning, settled into one of the deeper tidepools, too stubborn to leave before low tide. “You came!”

“Yeah, I came.” Nyx let himself be dragged into the water. Let Noctis curl around him with that heavy tail holding him in place.


End file.
